The original 13-part Cosmos: A Personal Voyage first aired in
1980 on the Public Broadcasting System, and was hosted by Carl Sagan.
The show has been considered highly significant since its broadcast;
Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times described it as "a watershed moment
for science-themed television programming". The show has been watched by
at least 400 million people across 60 different countries.

Following Sagan's death in 1996, his widow Ann Druyan, the co-creator of
the original Cosmos series along with Steven Soter, a producer from the
series, and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, sought to create a new
version of the series, aimed to appeal to as wide an audience as
possible and not just to those interested in the sciences. They had
struggled for years with reluctant television networks that failed to
see the broad appeal of the show.

Seth MacFarlane had met Druyan through Tyson at the 2008 kickoff event
for the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a new LA office of the
National Academy of Sciences, designed to connect Hollywood writers and
directors with scientists. A year later, at a 2009 lunch in NYC with
Tyson, MacFarlane learned of their interest to recreate Cosmos. He was
influenced by Cosmos as a child, believing that Cosmos served to
"[bridge] the gap between the academic community and the general
public". MacFarlane had considered that the reduction of effort for
space travel in recent decades to be part of "our culture of lethargy".
MacFarlane, who has several animated shows on the Fox Network, was able
to bring Druyan to meet the heads of Fox programming, Peter Rice and
Kevin Reilly, and helped to get the greenlighting of the show.
MacFarlane admits that he is "the least essential person in this
equation" and the effort is a departure from work he's done before, but
considers this to be "very comfortable territory for [himself]
personally". He and Druyan have become close friends, and Druyan stated
that she believed that Sagan and MacFarlane would have been "kindred
spirits" with their respective "protean talents".